For a moment, there was silence in the room.
Tom thought he must have misheard T-3, that maybe the kid hadn't actually said what he thought he did. But as the seconds stretched into an eternity, and no one spoke to correct him, the truth became undeniable.
That… that was his breaking point.
Ever since we landed on this planet, Tom had tried to understand. He had accepted the logic behind their brutal wars, their strange customs, their twisted survival tactics. He hadn't questioned any of it, not once.
But this?
First, they sent children into battle.
Then, they drank the blood of the fallen.
And now… now they were eating them?
What happened next was something I had already expected.
In a fit of unrestrained fury, Tom lunged toward the General. His body moved faster than thought, driven purely by rage.
In that moment... that single, terrible moment...
He knew nothing of honour, for honour did not exist in a world this broken.
He knew nothing of mercy, for mercy was a privilege long forgotten.
He knew nothing but revenge, revenge for all the nameless soldiers who had bled for people unworthy of their sacrifice.
But just as his fist was about to shatter the General's skull, another hand stopped it cold.
"What are you doing?" Tom growled, his voice so low and dark it could have made even the heretics shiver.
Then he realized, everything around us had stopped. The flicker of light, the hum of air, the very movement of dust, all frozen in place. It was as if we had been trapped inside a living image, one where only our consciousness could still move.
"I should be asking you the same," I said.
My eyes glowed with a brilliant green light as I kept Tom aware even within the stillness.
"These people were not the ones we were sent here to protect!" Tom shouted. "These monsters wearing human skin... they eat their own! They aren't people anymore!"
"They're trying to survive," I said quietly.
"It's better to die than to survive like this! Don't you see that?!" Tom's eyes were bloodshot, trembling with fury. "They're not worth your mercy!"
"…" I had no answer... because I knew... deep down, I knew that Moriarty would have killed the General too, if I hadn't taken control.
"You really think they're worth saving?" Tom asked, his voice breaking, standing at the fragile edge between fury and despair.
"No…" I said, meeting his eyes. "But you are."
After a long, silent moment of contemplation, Tom finally lowered his hand and turned away. Without another word, he walked out of the room.
As I deactivated my ability, time resumed. The plates on the table, frozen midair during the pause, went flying in every direction. But before they could crash to the floor, they were caught within shimmering orbs of water. The liquid suspended them gently, guiding each one back to its place on the table.
A hush fell over the room.
"What just…?" one of the soldiers stammered, his voice barely audible behind his mask.
No one else spoke. The soldiers simply stared in disbelief at the surreal sight they'd witnessed. Yet, amidst the silence, the General alone seemed calm.
"Clear the room," he ordered evenly.
The soldiers saluted without a word and left through the heavy door, leaving just the two of us in that cavernous chamber.
"…I'm guessing you have something to say about all of this," I said at last, my back still turned to him.
"You didn't need to save me, sir." The General's voice carried a fatigue that felt older than his years. "I was prepared to die here."
He stepped closer to the table, resting a gloved hand against the stone. "Although we cannot leave our planets like you angels do, we've heard the stories, stories of angels descending from the skies, slaying the highest in command, and taking over their thrones, after all you need someone to take out your anger on."
"Is that why you sent a squad of children on a death mission just to greet us?" I asked quietly, turning my gaze toward him.
"A necessary sacrifice," he replied without hesitation. "You live in your Training Planets, eating until full, drinking clean water, surrounded by comfort. But we… we claw at the dirt for a drop of sustenance. We devour our dead because the living must persist. We fight and die so that our successors, if there ever are any, might live in peace."
His tone never wavered. It was neither pride nor guilt that carried his words.
"…" I turned away, unable to meet his eyes any longer.
"Our lives are expendable, sir," the General said softly.
I finally turned to look at him. His mask hid his expression, but I could feel the exhaustion in his voice, the kind that only comes from carrying the weight of too many graves.
"Not to me," I said simply, before turning and leaving the room.
As I stepped out of the room, the soldiers were still standing in the hallway, silent, and obediently distant, exactly where the General had told them to remain.
It struck me then, the General's words hadn't been exaggerations.
These people truly believed they were nothing more than tools; expendable cogs in a machine long since rusted by war and despair. They didn't even mourn the dead. They simply endured.
As I ascended the stone stairway spiraling through the dragon's skull, I left behind the sound of their hollow breathing. The air grew colder near the top, carrying with it the faint scent of scorched bone and metal dust.
When I finally emerged into the open air, I saw Tom sitting on one of the curved horns of the dragon's skull, his legs dangling over the abyss below. The twilight painted the battlefield in a somber orange hue, and his shadow looked like that of a man burdened by too many truths.
"You know, Raymond," Tom began quietly as I approached, "maybe these people would've been better off if the Empire hadn't abandoned them on this war-torn rock. Left to die, to starve, to eat their own..." He paused, staring out into the horizon. "Honestly… I don't even know who to blame anymore."
"Neither do I," I admitted, sitting beside him. "I'm sure everyone else sent on missions like ours feels the same. This isn't what we trained for."
There was a silence. Only the wind moved — whispering through the cracks in the colossal skeleton beneath us.
"I don't even know what to eat anymore," I muttered, half to myself.
Tom let out a short, humorless laugh. "Don't you need, what, two hundred calories a day or something?"
"I can manage without, as long as I don't activate my ability too much," I replied, glancing at the barren wasteland stretching before us. "We should try finding some moss. It's edible but enough to keep ourselves going."
Tom sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah… when you think about it, even moss sounds better than whatever they're eating."